A Discourse Analysis Approach to Understanding how people construct arguments in online forums towards membership of the European Union in the Brexit debate.

Abstract

As the rate at which people use media to interact with one another increases, the volume of research surrounding the matter has also. Researchers have suggested that online political discussion facilitates the expansion of public knowledge (Dahlgren, 2005) and people's willingness to contribute to political conversations (Price et al., 2002). This study examines, through a discursive analysis of online forums which debate membership of the European Union before the vote happened, how people construct arguments in online forums, with close regards to the research currently suggesting the notion of post-truth. Specifically, it looks at how people constructed arguments both for and against membership of the EU in the Brexit debate and whether any specific methods were adopted in doing this. Results suggest that there are three main ways people will construct arguments in online forums and that people tend to make strong arguments against what is presented as factual from opposing sides.